Painting is sometimes like those recipes where you do all manner of elaborate things to a duck, and then end up putting it on one side and only using the skin.

My work is purely autobiographical... It is about myself and my surroundings.

The paintings live because their creator has been passionately attentive to their theme, and his attention has left something for us to look at. It seems a sort of miracle.

Losing as much money as I can get hold of is an instant solution to my economic problems.

The painter's obsession with his subject is all that he needs to drive him to work.

A painter must think of everything he sees as being there entirely for his own use and pleasure.

I would wish my portraits to be of the people, not like them. Not having a look of the sitter, being them.